When GMAC Commercial Finance LLC cut off funding to Aloha Airlines in April, it forced the airline to shut down its passenger service and lay off 1,900 workers.

Now, it looks like GMAC will recover most of the $49 million it loaned to Aloha.

Since the shutdown, Aloha and its court-appointed trustee Dane Field has sold the airline's profitable cargo and contract services divisions, in deals that brought in a total of $20 million.

Field also has sold Aloha's legal claims against Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group to Aloha's main investor Yucaipa Co., which credit bid $10 million of the debt owed by Aloha for the rights to pursue the lawsuit.

Field's attorney Jim Wagner said recently that the trustee plans to sell another $10 million to $15 million of remaining aircraft frames, engines and aircraft parts.

That would bring the total haul to about $40 million to $46 million.

Most of that money goes to GMAC, which has a priority position as a secured creditor.

About 5 percent of the sales proceeds will pay for bankruptcy costs and go to Aloha's unsecured creditors, which include vendors, company employees and other people and businesses owed money by Aloha.

Former Aloha employees and the state of Hawai'i have urged Aloha and GMAC to increase the payments to unsecured creditors, saying they suffer a disproportionately.

"Employees haven't seen any of the benefit from these sales," said one former employee.

"I guess that's the way of corporate America these days."

Reach Rick Daysog at 525-8064 or rdaysog@honoluluadvertiser.com.